Richard Spencer warns Charlottesville to brace itself for more white supremacist protests

Richard Spencer has urged Charlottesville to prepare for more white supremacist “flashmobs” after leading a march by torchlight on Saturday in Charlottesville.

The leading white supremacist, who rose to fame for being punched at an anti-trump protest, helped to organise a march in the Virginia city on Saturday.

This follows the “Unite the Right” rally which saw Neo-Nazis, KKK members, and “alt-right” supporters descend on Charlottesville in August clutching flaming torches, assault rifles and wearing paramilitary clothing.

Ugly clashes broke out with counter protesters and culminated in Heather Heyer, a peaceful civil rights activist, being killed after a car was deliberately mowed into a crowd of peaceful anti-fascist protesters.

Residents of the ordinarily quiet university town were shocked to see Spencer, who is credited with coining the term “alt-right”, return to the scene of the racially-charged violence on Saturday.

A mob of 40 white men dressed in shirts and khakis bearing tiki torches gathered around the city’s covered statue of US Confederate Army General Robert E Lee. This is the third protest which white supremacists have staged this year against the proposed removal of the monument.

Sharing a video on Twitter in the wake of the protest, Spencer hailed the success of the gathering and announced there would be more to come.

“Charlottesville 3.0 was a great success and it was a lot of fun. We came, we triggered, we left, we did an in and out flashmob. We did some singing, some chanting, some speeches. We got in and out. There were no injuries and no major confrontations.”

He added: “We’re going to do this again. This is definitely a model which is going to be repeated.”

Spencer, who is president of the white nationalist National Policy Institute, told Newsweek that people could expect to see many similar style rallies in the months coming. “We could come back with three or ten times the number of people in the future," he said.

A local television station reported that just a few dozen marchers began their latest protest at 7.40pm and had departed just 15 minutes later. Spencer shared a video showing the protest in which demonstrators chanted “You will not replace us” and “We will be back”.

The crowd was also reportedly chanting “The south will rise again. Russia is our friend. The south will rise again. Woo-hoo! Wooo.”

Charlottesville’s mayor, Mike Signer, expressed his anger at the demonstration and urged Spencer and his supporters to vacate the area.

“Another despicable visit by neo-Nazi cowards. You’re not welcome here! Go home! Meantime we’re looking at all our legal options. Stay tuned,” he said.

A local NBC station’s description of the recent marchers as “white activists” on Saturday stirred controversy and critics on social media chimed in to argue they should be branded neo-Nazis or white supremacists.

In the immediate wake of the deadly violence which erupted in Charlottesville over the summer, Spencer promised to carry on protesting. He said he had “the will to win” in the battle not to pull down the confederate statue.

“We’re going to be back here and we’re going to humiliate all of these people who opposed us,” he said at the time. “We’ll be back here 100 times if necessary. I always win. Because I have the will to win, I keep going until I win.”

Last week a video emerged of Spencer doing the Nazi salute while alt-right” posterboy Milo Yiannopoulos belted out a song.

The video, published by Buzzfeed News as a part of an investigation into Breitbart News’ ties to neo-Nazis and white nationalists, shows Yiannopoulos singing “America, the Beautiful” at a Dallas Karaoke bar while crowd members give the salute.

Yiannopoulos, who was forced to resign from his position as a Breitbart editor after his controversial remarks about paedophilia resurfaced earlier this year, has since claimed he was not able to see Spencer and the others because he has “extreme myopia”, and insisted he is not a racist. Yiannopoulos sent The Independent photos that he says illustrate the severity of his nearsightedness when is not wearing glasses and alleged that Mr Spencer was trying to give the false impression that they share the same beliefs.

This is not the first time Spencer has been linked with neo-Nazism. He sparked outrage when he made a number of allusions to Nazi ideology during a speech at a conference in Washington last November.

“Hail Trump! Hail our people! Hail victory!” he declared, prompting audience members to leap to their feet in applause, with several appearing to make drawn-out Hitler salutes.